Well you know I started from zero, this was my first instrument and I had no idea about music. I had a teacher for one and a half years and I really started from the very beginning so I had to start with songs like nursery rhymes, very simple songs just to learn it. I developed very quickly, I learned extremely fast. My father recorded everything from the beginning, and it's very interesting if you go back and listen to how quickly I developed, it astonishes me when I listen to early recordings and listen to how well I played already—so sometimes I wonder, what do I do now, I made these huge steps in the beginning. It's often like that, to go from zero to 80% is quite easy, but then from 80% to 100% is much more work in a way.
Barbara Dennerlein

I never modeled my playing after other organ players, of course I knew Jimmy McGriff and Jimmy Smith and that excited me, but as I said, I had a big passion for bebop and Charlie Parker, and he was the horn player I most admired, and I listened to him very much. I'm not someone who is analyzing much, like students who write down solos note by note, I did that too, but not much, I just listened and got inspired. I'm absorbing many things, I internalize them, and sometimes you find it somehow in my music as an inspiration, but I didn't write down the solos too much. And I think it was very important not to, because I ended up developing my own very personal style, and it's different from all the other organ players.
Barbara Dennerlein